


Loving Something Is Hard.

by Ageha_Sakura



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 13:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17767724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ageha_Sakura/pseuds/Ageha_Sakura
Summary: Levi learns to love again.





	Loving Something Is Hard.

Loving something is hard.

Loving something is a skill learned. People aren't born into the world loving. They are born into the world empty, barely able to survive on their own. Someone helps them, keeps them alive, teaches them. 

Levi wasn't born into the world already knowing how to love, but he learned. Though his mother could barely keep herself alive, she protected him and taught him as much as she could. He learned how to love, and he certainly loved her.

But loving something is hard.

And Levi had learned that the painful way when days without food turned into weeks with just scraps and small loaves that took just as long to earn. Food that could barely feed both of them and usually only fed Levi.

When weeks of just scraps turned into months, his mother could barely get out of the small cot they shared in the corner. She could not find the strength to leave her curled up position most days, which quickly turned into every day. Her coughing getting louder filling the room with each passing moment and her stifled groans of pain and constant reassurances filling Levi's heart. Welling up inside of him until he was sure he would explode. And all of those emotions faded into himself when the coughs and the groans and the pain went silent. They quietly settled into his bones and became a new permanent part of his existence as his mother lay unresponsive on their cot.

Losing something makes it hard to love again.

As Levi got older, he found himself making the same mistakes, losing the people around him. Letting them die when he should have been there keeping them safe. Levi was stronger now, strong enough to protect them and yet too many have passed on his watch. 

He stops letting people close to him. "No more," Levi prays. But a person like Eren, he never could understand the meaning of space or distance. Eren was something different. He was strong-willed, never backed down, naive at times and undoubtedly foolish. He would throw himself at anything again and again until he was battered and bruised, missing an arm or a leg. It never stopped him, and they only grew back.

Falling in love with Eren was hard.

He was stubborn when getting Levi's recognition, didn't know when to give it a rest. Levi always felt the steady and sure climb of his tolerance being breached when Eren's attention was too heavy. When the questions were too frequent, meaningless and Levi's patience too thin. And even when Levi's temper couldn't reign back, Eren was still returning to his side with slight hesitance but eyes full of confidence. 

Eren loved everything in full. And even though he wasn't able to move forward from his past, still trapped in the gaps and the confusion, he was able to use it to push himself harder. It made him stronger. And though it hurt and still hurts him, Eren always found it in himself to love and keep loving. To hold the people he cared for close and closer. It was a strength Levi envied. That will to endure loving and loving even harder. 

Loving Eren is hard.

Levi was scared when he first noticed the cold pull in his chest, from his bones, an odd itch at the back of his mind, a feeling he hadn't felt since he was young. Fear washed over him. It kept him tossing and turning at night. It held him around the corners and at the top of the staircase and high above training in the trees. He was on edge. Watching, waiting, listening. Any moment Eren could be gone, someone could take him, something could kill him. 

Distance felt wrong. Very quickly and somehow over too long a period the urge to be nearer was overwhelming. To take every moment and make it a moment shared. To have memories for the other to hold when time is cruel. More than the everyday routine, Levi and Eren found significance in small silences experienced together, or a shared glance manoeuvring through sturdy trunks. A careful caress while passing by in the halls. They met each other in the dead of night, deep below where rough stone felt cold to the touch. A soothing sensation, a coolness that could bring Levi back down from a warmth he wouldn't dare to have imagined before meeting Eren. Distance was yearning through those nights, but Levi couldn't sense its desperate pulls when he was close enough to taste Eren's lips.

And yet, loving Eren is easy.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, thanks for joining me on this wild ride! [Ereri Events](www.ererievents.tumblr.com) was awesome and started a Valentine Gift Exchange and I was paired with [@Tea-nd-titans](www.tea-nd-titans.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr! It was very stressful writing this for you because I don't write often, but I was glad I got to challenge myself with this! I really hope you like it, Benita!
> 
> Huge thanks to [Aer](www.omglevixeren.tumblr.com) who betaed all of this for me and [SJ!](www.attraversiamo19.tumblr.com) They both convinced me to do this and I would be hiding in the dark part of the fandom hissing at passersby without them ahahahahaha. Feel free to join [Me](www.ageha-sakura.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr for a wild time of shenanigans and ereri/riren!


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